Veteran science writer Jill Neimark interviews Bruce H. Lipton, Ph.D.

Magical Mem-brains?

Cell biologist Bruce Lipton says our lives are not ruled by our genes but by our cell membranes — which respond to our thoughts. Has he found the key to mind–body healing? Listen to his remarkable conversation with veteran science writer Jill Neimark.

The mystic healer Edgar Cayce once said, “Remember that thoughts are things, and as their currents run, they can become crimes or miracles.” Now cell biologist Bruce Lipton, formerly at University of Wisconsin and Stanford medical schools, suggests that Cayce was right. Lipton, author of Biology of Belief: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter, & Miracles, contends that our thoughts can activate changes in the activity of the cell membrane, and thus alter our health and life. 

Genes, proteins, and hormones all are players at the gates of the cell’s membrane, says Lipton, where consciousness and matter interact. In fact, he states bluntly that by changing our subconscious programming we can influence membrane function, and therefore, “We are not victims of our genes, but masters of our fate.”

Though Lipton may be reaching too far in some of his claims, his book has sparked interest not only from hypnotherapists and energy healers, but from cell biologists working on cancer at places like the University of Illinois at Chicago, where researchers have already published findings consistent with his emphasis on the cell membrane.

Jill Neimark(JN) : Early in your book, you describe a kind of eureka! insight where you realize that the cell membrane  is the equivalent of each cell’s brain. Later in your book, you write that interacting with the cell membrane will enable  us to change our lives, health, maybe even the activity of our genes. By changing our deepest beliefs, you say, we can  change the signals reaching the cell membrane, and thus  our  entire  bodies  from   the  cellular  level  on  up.  But  before  we  get  into  all  that,  “brain”  is  a loaded  word. What  exactly  do  you mean  by  brain  when  you  speak  of  the  “magical mem-brain”?

BL: I mean the  cell membrane  functions  as  the  active  intelligence  of  the  cell.  At  any  given  time,  every  cell membrane  contains  hundreds  of  thousands  of  switches,  and  the  behavior  of  a  cell  can  only  be  understood by considering  the  activities  of  all  the  switches.  So  I  asked  myself,  Where  does  the  cascade  of  activity  for a cell start?  And  it  starts  at  the membrane.  In  contrast,  genes  are  remarkable  molecules,  but  they  are  only blueprints that are activated by signals from the cell membrane. Genes are not our fate. Of course, a very small percentage of  people  actually  arrived  on  this  planet  with  defective  genes,  and  in  those  rare  cases  the blueprint  itself  is inappropriate.

JN: Scientists  have  long  known  that  genes  are  influenced  by  signals  from   their  environment. There is  the famous  book  The  Beak  of  the  Finch,  which  shows  us  that  evolution  is  happening  right  before our  eyes  in just  a  few   generations  of  birds  on  the  Galapagos  Islands.  The  length  of  the  finch  beak changes  according  to climate  change,  which  affects  the  type  of  seeds that  grow  on  the  island  and  thentype  of  beak  a  finch needs. So  haven’t  we  known  for  a  while  that  genes  are  flexible  and  responsive?

BL: I fully agree and do say in my book that if  you’re  a  leading-edge  scientist,  this  will not be  news. But if you ask the average person on the street what controls life, they will tell you genes control life. It was Nobel Prizen winner Francis  Crick  who  suggested  that  genes  are  both  the  blueprint  for  the  body’s  proteins  and  that  DNA controls its own replication. The first is true  but  the  second  is  not.  Genes  are  indeed  blueprints.  But  a  gene cannot cause  or  control  its  own  expression.  It  is  not  self-regulatory.  If  genes  don’t  control  life,  then  what  is  in charge of life? I say it’s the cell membrane. This is the “brain” equivalent. The membrane is the physical structure that interfaces internal “self” and external “not-self.”  It  is  an  interface  that  dynamically  reads  and  interprets environmental  cues  and  responds by  generating  signals  that  enable  the  cell  to  function  and  survive. And science supports  this. One  of  the  remarkable  studies  I mention  in my  book  shows  that  a  cell  whose  nucleus — with all its genes — is  removed  will  keep  functioning  for  as  long  as  a month!  This  was  a  shock  to me  at first,  since  I was trained  as  a nucleus-centered  biologist  as  surely  as  Copernicus  was  trained  as  an  Earth-centered astronomer. It was truly a jolt when I realized the nucleus does not program the cell. On the other hand, if the cell membrane is damaged, the cell will immediately become dysfunctional and, frequently, die very quickly.

JN: You  sent  me  a  very  interesting  article  on  stem   cells  from  Nature,  which  you  jokingly  titled,  “It’s the  stem   cells,  stupid!”  It  describes  how   the  body  is  like  an  ecosystem , and  the  activity  of  a  cell depends  on its  ecological  niche,  or  where  it  lives.  Stem   cells,  which  are  the  subject  of  so  much  hope and  controversy today,  are  influenced  by  their  environment  to  become  a  neuron  or  a  blood  cell  or any  other  kind  of  cell. But all  this  fascinating  new  research  actually  reinforces  my  view  that  every molecule  of  the  body  is  intelligent  in its  own  way.  Genes,  receptors,  stem cells, hormones, all  are key  players  and  intelligent.  The  synergy  of  our minds  and  bodies  seems  more  like  an  Escher painting  to  me,  where  the  beginning  loops  around  to  the  end and  around  again  to  the  beginning.  I think  you  are  overemphasizing  the  membrane.  Just  out  of  curiosity, how  do  you  think  life  began —do  you  think  it  began  with  RNA , DNA ,  cell membranes,  or  something  else?

BL: I think the membrane was a very important part of the beginning of biological life. If I take fats called phospholipids and shake them up in water, they spontaneously form membranes. And these membranes undergo fission—in  other  words, they separate into two. They seem to “grow” like cells. Now, lipids are nothin but a container, and that’s not life itself. But once we have a container we can define inside and outside and start to regulate the conditions inside. The ability to regulate our internal domain is required for life , since we must have very specific environmental conditions for certain biochemical responses. For instance, a cell needs to maintain a certain  pH  and  salt  balance.  I  believe  that  when  ancient  RNA  and  other  proteins  in  the  primeval  soup became encapsulated with in membranes , we had a breeding ground for life.

JN:  You state that we’re mostly controlled by subconscious programming, and that if we can change this programming, we can actually change the signals the membrane sends into the cell. First, how are you defining subconscious?  A  lot of work has been done in recent years showing which specific brain structures are involved in states like  fear, compassion, or the peaceful cosmic consciousness felt by experienced meditators. Are you using subconscious as a metaphor like Freud did, or are you referring to particular places in the brain?

BL: By conscious mind,  I meanthe part of the brain that  is self-reflective and self-observing, which is governed by the more recently evolved prefrontal cortex of the brain. By subconscious, I mean the part of the brain that is more ancient and doesn’t necessarily require conscious attention. It’s the programmable “hard drive” into which our life experiences are downloaded. The programs are fundamentally hardwired stimulus-response behaviors. 

This is so automatic that people often refer to the fact that somebody has “pushed their buttons” — leading to an instinctive response.

JN: How does subconscious programming influence the cell membrane?

BL: When  I have a thought, my mind sends out signals, in the form of growth factors,  hormones, or other chemicals. Thoughts can also initiate rapid oscillations of nerve cells in unison, which creates a kind of field effect that influences other cells and neurons almost instantaneously. Now, what’s interesting, and what I found out in my research  at  Stanford, is that your brain can veto what’s going on in other places in your  body. The signals sent out by your central nervous system actually override the function of cell membrane receptors that are responding to signals in their immediate environment. That means the brain can ultimately control the activity of  tissues and organs. I believe that the most powerful information processing by the brain is in the domain of the subconscious and that it can shape tissue  responses. These signals can actually influence the membrane to engage selected genes that then actively respond. 

When  part of the brain senses stress, for example, it  initiates a complex signal cascade that directs the body’scells to launch a protection response, particularly through a stress hormone called cortisol. Now, let’s look at what happens to, say, a  typical liver cell, which has receptors on its membrane that bind to cortisol. When it does this, the membrane sends information  to  the  genes  nside  the  nucleus  of  the  cell  to  shut down their ability to break down a form of sugar called glycogen. The genes stop doing this, and extra sugar is released into the blood. That sugar is used as energy to counter the stress. This cascade could have been started by a real stress, or by a belief that causes stress even if it is a misperception.

I actually think this system explains how the placebo effect works. And a recent article on the placebo effect on pain in the Journal of Neuroscience confirms this. When researchers used sophisticated imaging of the brain, they found that placebos that were believed tonquench pain activated parts of the brain that directly affected opioid  membrane receptors. That’s how a “belief” results in the chemical cascade that results in the placebo effect — and in this case, a reduction in pain. For hundreds of years we’ve been discussing the mind–body duality. What I’m proposing is a mechanism for its power.

JN: The  description is  fascinating and makes sense, but I think our frameworks are very different. I still don’t see a top-down hierarchy from the brain to the membrane.  I see us as a web that has no weaver, that weaves itself, and the act of weaving is us. Nobody has yet explained how physical processes give rise to conscious experience in the first place. We don’t know how a stimulus turns into the blueness of blue, the sweetness of sweet, the sentience of anything from a cell to a person. 

So it seems a leap to say that we now know how conscious experience modulates physical processes. What brought you to this work?

BL: My dad was an immigrant from Russia who came here at age 11, and by the time he was 16, he and his brother owned their first supermarket in New York City. I was born in 1944, and shortly after that we moved up to Chappaqua, the town where the Clintons now live. My mother told me that at that time there was a sign at the entrance to the town that read, “No Jews, no blacks, and no dogs.” We  were  Russian Jews and completely displaced into an environment  that disapproved of us. I had one friend down the block, and that was it. That’s why the first time I looked into a microscope, in the second grade, I was so mesmerized. Here was another world with living creatures and it had nothing to do with my own troubled world. I remember spending an entire summer with an old Brownie camera trying to take a picture of cells in my microscope.

JN: How has your belief in belief changed your own life?

BL: My sense of humor has saved me. Years ago, after my divorce,  I fell deeply in love with a woman and one day she said, “I think I need some space,”  and what seemed like 10 minutes  ater,  she moved in witha  cardiac surgeon. I pined away for nearly a year. I’d come home from work and just be alone and have this imaginary conversation with Barbara. I missed her all the time. Then one night, I was alone in my dark living room in the typical cold, grey Wisconsin winter and missing Barbara and I yelled out, “Just leave me alone, Barbara!” And all of a sudden the pure absurd humor of it struck me. I said to myself, “Well, she has left you  alone and that’s the problem.” The next time I started missing Barbara I thought about the absurd humor of it, and I started laughing.

Humor has had the same impact on the rest of my life. In a very similar way, I was berating myself one day for not being good enough. And right in the middle of all my negative self-talk it was as if a voice offstage said, “Isn’t  there anything more fun to do than this?” It was like I was in a stand-up comedy routine and I laughed out loud then and there. I’d been willingly engaging in “not-good-enough” programming from my subconscious, and there was something different I could do and I did it right then. I went to a movie. And the next time I got into a negative spiral of self-talk, the humor struck me again,and it just transcended my self-talk. That laughter was almost like a switch. Eventually, over time, the negative self-talk just stopped.

JN: What’s the one take-home message from the biology of belief?

BL: That we’re not, as individuals or societies, the pawns of our genes, or stuck in a vicious cycle of violence and competition. You can reinvent your life. The global community can reinvent itself, too. A study last year by two biologists, Robert M. Sapolsky and Lisa J. Share, showed this in a troop of baboons. The aggressive males happened to die out from foraging contaminated meat from a garbage pit. In the wake of their deaths, the females in the troop helped steer the remaining, less aggressive males into a more peaceful, cooperative community. We are all spiritual beings who need love as much as we need food. We can use the intelligence of our own cells to change our lives. 

Jill Neimark is a contributing editor of S&H. She is currently finishing a book on love and health with bioethicist Stephen Post.